NL
What we do
After previous pilots including delivery robot Rosie and a logistics robot at a vacation park, we now wanted to investigate how delivery robots can have a social value for both care staff and the elderly. An aging population and staff shortages are putting increasing pressure on care staff, can a delivery robot help answer this issue in part?
The prerequisite was a care home in which we could run the study. Eventually we were able to go to a care home specifically for people with Korsakov, which made the application a little more specific. Because this target group has been vitamin B deficient over an extended period of time, it is extra difficult for them to learn new things or not become overstimulated.
This presented us with a slightly greater challenge than anticipated, but in doing so it also made it a very interesting study.
How we do it
The task required a tailored approach. We started with a step-by-step introduction of the robot to the residents. This was followed by a context and needs analysis: where can the robot offer added value from the point of view of the residents and the care staff? This allowed the research question to be made specific based on the obstacles and needs that occur daily in and around the nursing home. You can read more about this in the preliminary analysis on the DMI website.
Two use cases were eventually selected to conduct practical trials of the delivery robot; a situation outside the nursing home, interacting with traffic, and a situation inside a residential group, interacting with the living environment. Through action-research, we investigated what it might mean in the morning routine and supervision if a resident’s catheters were brought by a robot. In this, we examined whether it could give something back to the resident(s) in terms of self-reliance, by putting this moment under its own control and postponing interaction with the care staff in the morning.
In this, we guarded that a social moment would disappear from people’s day. Also from the desire of the care staff, that there was no loss in sight of this. The resident already had a little more freedom than other residents. How did he experience it? What did it do for his self-reliance? For example, could there be a moment in the afternoon when he participated in a social activity? Could it be combined with anything else for even more self-reliance? How was the experience for the care staff? More flexibility or more time for personal attention?
Outside of the nursing home, we also ran a neighboring test for how people react when the robot brings care messages to the nursing home. What about crossing situations? What are the reactions of motorists and pedestrians or cyclists? Is there a difference in interaction with people moving by versus visitors to the nursing home? How do they move around it? More on this in the second report.
The Result
From this compressed study, at least the desire has emerged to run the study with a broader target group as well. In this we want to explore whether the findings are similar or whether less specific issues apply to a service apartment, for example. For the situation on the street, it seems interesting to see if the robot is only helped from a distance at crossing points by someone operating the robot externally – because that is where the delivery robot’s biggest pain point lies. The nursing home also sees another possible use case in reading blood values from residents, given that a lot of time goes into this impersonal and routine chore, which could be better utilized with personal attention to residents, especially in the evening when the ward is less staffed.
On Thursday, May 16, there will be a closing event presenting the findings, as well as a demonstration. There will also be room for input and discussion to move the topic forward.
